Metro network transport platforms must be compact, scalable, and agile to conquer the specific challenges of this key portion of the transport network. Growing and shifting traffic in the metro has triggered these challenges.

Today’s cloud-optimized metro network transport platforms “must” be:

Compact – with optimal power and performance in a form factor that meets metro operational cost targets

Scalable – to have the capacity you need when you need it to aggregate and transport multiple, high-performance services

Agile and intelligent – to dynamically reconfigure network resources to get services to your customers faster

At the Cloud Partners show, there is a talk show component called CPZ. I have been a guest a couple of times. In this picture you see VP of Indirect Channel Sales at Comcast Business, Craig Schlagbaum, and Jeff Ponts, President of TCA and master agent at DataTel. They were just 2 of the guests.

Schlagbaum made a good point about how IBM and other IT vendors embrace the channel to handle all the businesses outside the Fortune 500 (which they handle directly).

Maybe my head is in the clouds here at Cloud Partner Conference, but I have been scratching my head about a few things this morning.

I wonder why AT&T Wholesale has a meeting room at an Agent show. I understand that ACC Business, an AT&T division, is moving to a buy rate model. I have heard something similar will be coming from TWC in Texas.

Thanks to recent revelations, we know that Verizon, AT&T and others are feeding the NSA with all our emails, call records, Internet search history, etc. In the wake of this privacy nightmare, Verizon is in court fighting the FCC over more than just Net Neutrality.

Does the FCC have authority to enforce Net Neutrality rules? A court already ruled yes.

In an email about a show, it states you can change or die. Then GCN had this cartoon on its Facebook page today:

There are so many business options. VAR, VAD, Master Agents, Telecom Agents, manufacturers, carriers, service providers, even B&N are in the midst of a fast changing industry. The sands are shifting fast.

A weekend of labor by bankers and telecom execs resulted in two purchases. Verizon finally was able to rest full control of VZW out of Vodafone. However, it cost VZ $130 Billion to do that. Vodafone's 45% ownership of VZW was purchased "for $58.9 billion cash, $60.2 billion stock and $10 billion in other consideration," according to WSJ.